Is there anywhere I can go when I can't find what has been done to a feature in the "old" version? I am a newbie and in trying to learn from books I am hitting more than a few road blocks. Right now I can't for the life of me find "auto IK" in 2.56. Blenderartists.org seems to be down or I might try asking there.

I've used 2.46 for a while and was great, but in 2.49 my old python scripts are messing up. I don't understand why! example: an old but very common script is the car script for blender games. It keeps shooting my car across the map at the start. Most of my simple racing games wont work anymore because of this. It's very frustrating and would appreciate any help! I've tried adjusting the script to compensate for the physics malfunction and it still does the same thing...

You can find Auto IK when you are in the 3D View. You use the 'T' key to make appears the "tool box" in which you will find the auto IK button when you have selected your armature and enter in pose mode.